A Week in Hospital

Last Sunday, Seth had a low grade fever in the mid to high 37's so we kept an eye on him all day. By 3 o'clock Monday morning his temperature had reached 38.9. So off we went to hospital. The doctors had started him immediately on antibiotics via a drip (he wanted his central line back in now he has experienced the canula in his hand and all those blood tests) to begin the fighting process in case they were fighting a bacterial infection. After many tests and several blood tests they determined that the cause of the temperatures which went up to 39.9 was Influenza A and the strain was Swine Flu. This is not as alarming as the media has made it out to be and he was started on Tamiflu medication and began to recover quite quickly. Unfortunately, he came down with a second infection due to the fact that the antibiotics he was on had killed all good flora in his digestive system. This allowed a nasty little bug to grow out of control and cause terrible diahorrea. They then changed his antibiotics and added more medicine for him to take. We were able to come home on Thursday - just! His blood counts were dropping lower and lower even though they took him off his chemo. When he arrived his neutrophils were 0.6 (on his chemo his neutrophils should be sitting at 1.0) the following day they were 0.4 and two days later (thursday) they were 0.2. They were heading in the wrong direction and if they had gone below 0.2 we would not have been able to leave the hospital. He is in high spirits but is very bored after being stuck in hospital all week and now because I have holed him up in the house. His sisters seem to have the same sickness as he as they are suffering high temps and bad coughs as well. I have enforced a self inposed isolation zone on our house, hoping that this flu doesn't get passed along. So far Brett and I haven't come down with it - we have sore throats and headaches and earaches that seem to come and go but no temps or coughs. The doctors have assured me that it will come as I was the one exposed to Seth at the hospital. All the doctors and nurses came in with gowns, masks and gloves which Seth thought was a bit funny. All I could think, was 'I was in for it'. So far so good though - positive thinking and all that!
Seth has to go back to hospital on Monday and have yet another blood test. Hopefully his neutrophils are headed the right way and we can move on with getting back to normal.